


Green Heart, White Noise

by Lothlorienx



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Original Fiction, Original Story - Freeform, Science Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, scifi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 17:45:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5937249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lothlorienx/pseuds/Lothlorienx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only way to keep a spacecraft breathing is by taking a part of the Earth with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Green Heart, White Noise

Victoria was unsure how she felt about the Tower, for that was what people were calling it. A tower. Not a spacecraft or a spaceship, but just a Tower.

Either way, Victoria had the creeping sensation that she hated it. Hated it more than anything else that she could have conjured within her mind. It seemed stale and robotic and sullen and lifeless to her. Like it was literally sucking the life out of her, and making her a hollow shell of the person whom she had once been. Gray metal that had tried to be livened up with fresh flowers and colorful artwork couldn't help at all; so far only made it look like a vividly colored hospital hallway.

Victoria could still remember those hospitals.

Though she didn't want to.

"Miss, are you lost?" she heard someone call to her.

"No," she automatically replied, without even turning to look at who had spoken to her. She was in such a daze that she didn't care. Couldn't care, really. She had spent so much time within this damned ship that her headaches had headaches. At least her mind wasn't going gray. That much she had going for her.

She could still remember color. Maybe that was what the pictures were for.

Victoria lifted up her single robotic arm, attached to her organic body. The only piece of her that she missed. A single robotic arm couldn't really give her the feeling of an arm. All of it just seemed like a cheap imitation. Sure, everything was there; the metal bones and circuitry that allowed her to move, and sensors beneath the laboratory-grown skin that simulated nerve endings so that she could feel things.

But she couldn't feel the liveliness of the blood rushing through her veins, or the muscles moving beneath the fabricated skin, or the joints curling and uncurling. It was a vague strangeness, a ghost of feeling, and one that she just couldn't shake.

Still, she pulled her mechanical arm up, and pulled back the fake skin to reveal the machines underneath. It didn't even hurt; such things were beyond this technology. Victoria looked down upon the metal and wired arm, mourning for this little loss of her humanity.

Everyday, she felt more and more disconnected from everything around her. Things that were supposed to make her real, make her feel alive, simply weren't there. They were gone. First it had been her arm, now it was the fact that she no longer lived on Earth, but in a space station in orbit above the Earth, called The Tower.

She groaned, and pressed both of her hands to the temples of her head, trying to ease the growing discomfort that mounted on her skull. The pressure was terrible, and all Victoria could think of was something to take for it. Pills, of course.

Little, artificial pills that would give her artificial release. On Earth, she hadn't really been one for naturalism, and all the eco-friendly herbs and roots that they sold in green bottles. But now, she realized she would give anything to see one of those bottles nowadays.

"That way is a dead end," she heard a voice say behind her.

Victoria turned to see one of her…teammates…standing behind her. A young man, probably in his early twenties, dressed down in clothes that could have passed for Earthly.

"I did not ask you," Victoria turned him, spinning on her heel.

"Just trying to help," he said to her, raising up his hands defensively. "That way is a dead end," he continued on, pointing a single finger in Victoria's chosen path. "That way," he said, jutting his thumb behind him, "will lead to something much more pleasant. Trust me."

With that, he gave a small smile—for a headache was creeping up on his mind, too—and walked away so Victoria could be alone once more.

She looked back to where she was walking, and after thinking it over for a little while, she concluded that it was in fact a dead in. So he had not been lying to her. Not that he'd have any reason to lie, but still.

Victoria decided to head off the way he had suggested, wondering what exactly this something much more pleasant was supposed to be. Gray hallways sparsely colored ran past her in a slow blur, and she just listened to the metallic tap of her feet upon the surface of the floor. It was all a drone in her ears, all white noise.

White noise.

Yeah, that was the best way to describe it all.

And if white noise could transcend the sense of hearing, and into other things like sight and taste and smell and touch, then that would be how Victoria would have described her entire experience up here in the Tower. White noise, in every way possible.

A large metal door loomed in front of Victoria, and every step she took brought her closer to the closed threshold. Her eyes fixed upon it as she neared closer. She racked her memory once more as she approached it, but so far everything turned up blank. She couldn't remember ever seeing this door before, or coming down this hall.

Granted, the Tower was big, and there were still many parts to her that she didn't know or simply had forgotten. But this was truly someplace that she had never been before.

Curiosity piqued in her, and she found herself walking faster, her feet flying beneath her, as she tried to make it to the door. It would be something else for her to do today, something new to discover. Really, exploration was the only thing that kept her sane.

Ten feet tall the door loomed, but Victoria found that it was not closed all the way, and that it was easy to move. She slipped her fingers into the gap and pushed, making the door slide open to reveal what lay beyond to her.

The first thing that met her was humidity. A great humidity that seemed to smack into her face, like the warm breath of a giant breathing down upon her. Then, a sense of air so clean that her lungs seemed to expand more than they had expanded in weeks, months even. Victoria had closed her eyes when the door had first opened, to stop the rush of air from hitting her in the face and burn her eyes, but now she opened them.

All she saw at first was green.

A bright, beautiful green that expanded as far as the eye could meet. A hundred stories up, cascading down far below in the center of the gigantic room she now stood in. An entire ecosystem build around her. Plants so freshly green they could have burned her retinas, and fresh clean air. And water…so much pure water. In waterfalls, in ponds, in puddles, in rain. Artificial rain, sprinkled down from faucets on the ceilings and walls, but it was rain.

Victoria's headache seemed to ease immediately, until she could have forgotten what a headache was in the first place.

She stepped further into this room, with caution. It seemed to her like an illusion that had been created within a fevered mind desperate for something earthy, and that if she pushed too hard she would lose the illusion.

But it was not an illusion.

"What is this place?" Victoria asked herself in a whisper, as she stepped forever forwards to the railing. Vines had grown thick over the lifeless metal and grass and thick, wet moss covered the floor, making the landings slippery.

Reaching down, Victoria pulled her shoes off of her, and then sunk her feet into the living green.

"This is the heart of the tower," said a voice behind her. The same voice.

Victoria turned to see the same young man standing behind her, yet looking beyond her to the natural world created within the center of the huge space craft.

"The heart?" she asked him.

"Yeah. I come here a lot. Relieves headaches and stress, and the occasional pull on the heart. Good place to be."

Victoria leaned over the railing. A small waterfall splashed at her face, drenching her parched skin in cool, refreshing droplets that made her smile. She would have stuck her tongue out, had she been more depraved of what she was missing. But the ship had water, that much was true.

"When the Tower was created, we were met with a dilemma. How were we to create artificial yet breathable air? How were we to replenish the water supply? How were we to have a constant source of food? Well, this place is the solution. It is gigantic, as you can tell, for it takes up the very center of the Tower, and dominates everything that goes on around here. Takes up most of the place."

The young man finished his speech.

"It is wonderful," Victoria commented. "But why limit the greenery to just here? Why not have it spread out and flourish all among the Tower?"

"We have plans to do just that. I'm one of the original concept creators, you know. Anyway, within the years that we pass up here in outer space, this place is supposed to be a major factor in our lives. Our only chance of survival. So, letting is spread is in the concept plans."

Victoria stopped listening to him about halfway in.

She walked across the grass that was suddenly beneath her feet, listened to the bubble and gurgle of a nearby stream that was cascading over the small hills and pebbles and stones. Real stones, real rocks. Pulled all the way from earth.

"This place…it is like a zen garden," Victoria commented. But better, she thought.

Unable to help herself, she dropped down to a sitting position, crossing her legs beneath her. A tree…a real tree…was a little ways away from her, so she leaned her back up against that. The familiar, comfortable feeling of natural bark pressed into the skin of her back, and not even the softest of mattresses could have compared.

She dipped her feet into the running water.

"This will be filtered, won't it?" Victoria asked the young man, as if concerned that her feet might poison the entire crew of the Tower.

"Oh, yes. Of course," he replied easily. He went on the explain the mechanisms in depth, about how this all was filtered out and everything was cleaned and everything was being spread evenly throughout the entire craft...

"An entire ecosystem," Victoria whispered, musing to herself. It seemed too good to be true. She should have come to the center long ago. Long, long ago. If she could have. How she had never stumbled upon this place by accident was beyond her.

"If you look," the young man continued on. Victoria was starting to get annoyed at him, but she said nothing. Her headache had eased, so her patience had lengthened a considerable amount. She opened her eyes, to take in the beautiful landscape around her once more.

"Look, far up there. That is the roof of the Tower, and down there is the floor. Both are made of very thick and yet very transparent glass. This is to let natural sunlight in, as well as to give everyone here vision of the world which we are passing."

"It is obvious to tell that you are one of the creators," Victoria told him. The way he was showing off and explaining everything…no mistaking it.

The young man beamed, as if she had given him the best compliment in the world. Their new world, that is.

"What is your name?" Victoria asked him, with an arched eyebrow.

"Dante," he replied instantly. "Dr. Dante Mordal."

Strange name, she thought. Mordal. Mordal. But still, she was grateful all the same. Anyone who had provided this natural sanctuary in the stale machine prison that was her new home was a saint to her. Victoria's eyes softened once more as she took around the settings that surrounded her. Everything seemed perfect now.

Whenever she got her headaches, she now knew that she could come to this place. And be reminded of her home on Earth.

**Author's Note:**

> This was to be a short, one chapter story. Hope you enjoyed. Likes and reviews always welcome.


End file.
